United Kingdom-based BookDepository has opened up shop on our virtual shores. The BookDepository has been raking in awards around the world as a leader in the online bookselling world and seems to be the only current site that can compete with Amazon and B&N.com on price.
I price compared three titles that I would like to purchase soon and they were all cheaper on BookDepository, with a price difference ranging between a penny and 62 cents. So not major savings (they do claim free shipping worldwide though), but it sure is nice to have someone else trying to be competitive.
One thing I really do like is that they are using Google Preview API on their site. It’s nice to be able to read enough of a book that you know you’re making an informed purchase. It’s not as nice as being in a real bookstore, but the extra preview pages are the next best thing. Let us know if you’ve had any experience buying from them.
I used to think that days like today were nothing more than some marketing gimmick conjured up by various trade associations, but today is different. “Buying local” seems to be the savior we’ve been looking for all this time. Which financial institutions are surviving the financial crisis the best? Local ones. Where is the best place to buy food, ensuring no crazy chemicals or pests have been involved? Locally. You want to support your community and keep your neighbors employed? Buy local.
I consider myself a Twitter newbie, but I know I will be racking up the tweets in the weeks ahead, as LibraryThing has just added Twitter integration. That is, you can now add books to you LibraryThing account via Twitter. The set-up process is very straight forward as are the tweet set-ups.
I’m ready to go, but I don’t have any books to enter. All mine are already cataloged… something that needs to be remedied this weekend!
Orbit Books is offering one e-book for $1 for one month, through April. They even set up a special promotional site. One thing I found interesting is that they are not serving up the downloads themselves. They have tapped into the myriad of online distributors of digital book files.
I think this is great promo Orbit is running. And I’m sure more publishers will follow suit. I just wonder how long it will be pefore publishers bite the bullet and invest in their own site infrastructure so they can serve up all these file formats themselves… fewer clicks is a good thing, for the customer and for the distribution fees.
